Chef turned bank robber gets more time

TIPP CITY, Ohio (WDTN) - By Will E. Sanders, staff writer, Piqua Daily Call

A Dayton area chef who turned to robbing banks to supplement his income faced a judge in common pleas court Monday and was sentenced to four years in prison for the July 8, 2011, bank robbery at the United National Bank, 1176 Main St., Tipp City.

Thomas McLaren, 39, of Kettering, received the sentence following a July court hearing where he entered a plea of no contest and was found guilty of aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony, along with a weapon specification since the crime he committed involved a firearm.

Police reports indicate McLaren robbed the Tipp City bank just after it opened when he approached a teller, presented a note written on the back of a recipe card demanding money and indicated he had a firearm. Afterward, McLaren fled the store on foot with approximately $1,100.

"I just want to apologize for my behavior," McLaren told Judge Christopher Gee.

In addition to his sentence, McLaren will serve five years of post-release control after his release from prison in 2015.

In rendering his decision, Gee took into account three victim impact statements written by bank employees, and said their lives have "changed dramatically" because of the bank robbery.

"You did more than just take money," Gee told the two-time bank robber. "You altered the lives of the people that worked in the bank."

The four-year-term handed down to McLaren for the Miami County bank robbery will run concurrently to the prison sentence he is currently serving.

McLaren is already serving a four-year sentence at the Noble Correctional Institution in Caldwell for a July 18, 2011, bank robbery in Sidney at the U.S. Bank, 111. N. Vandemark Road, after he was sentenced for the crime in Shelby County last November.

In that robbery McLaren handed a clerk a note, written on the bank of a recipe card, indicating he had a firearm just like he did during the Tipp City bank robbery and fled the store on foot with $2,970 in cash. During that robbery the suspect was witnessed wearing a chef’s coat, police said.

That robbery occurred at the bank while no customers were inside and no injuries were reported as a result of either bank heist.

McLaren later surrendered to police officers with the Sidney Police Department two days later.

Restitution was ordered in both cases.